


A Shared Unknown

by mirelia853



Category: Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: AU, Gen, Two sides to the same person, winter soldier - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-14
Updated: 2012-12-14
Packaged: 2017-11-21 02:09:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/592270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mirelia853/pseuds/mirelia853
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha Romanov and Steve Rogers have a heart to heart, unaware they are talking about the same person. One-shot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Shared Unknown

"Have you ever met someone so influential on your life, that when they're gone, they leave such a large gap, you're never sure they can be replaced?"

  
Natasha watched Steve as he stared out over the sunset city of New York. Captain America seemed lost as he gazed as he sat on the edge of Iron Man's landing pad. Handing her friend a bottle of beer, she sat down next to him.

  
Pausing for a moment, Natasha sat with a beer in her hand and supped her drink."Once a long time ago," Natasha began, scanning the sky as if expecting trouble, "I met a man who was my mentor. This was back during my training, so I was a teenager, yet I was far from naive. None of us were." Natasha suddenly became Natalia again, a deadly young woman with no friends and fewer emotions - until she met the Winter Soldier.

  
"He was an expert in espionage and coercion. It was only after a mission where the two of us had to pretend to be to be husband and wife, that the lines blurred. After that...” Natasha felt those intense blue eyes on her. She ran her hand over the chill of the glass. “We had to keep our relationship secret. It only took a few weeks before our secret was not a secret any more.” She slugged the bottle back. _There are no secrets within the Red Room, Comrade Romanova._ She had been lucky. Natalia Romanova had been such a good student and assassin that her skill was needed. The Winter Soldier however, had been tortured and ‘put on ice’, taken out every  five years for a few months. Nat had seen him once, when she was on a mission. He had escaped off down an alley in Prague and Natalia lost him.

  
"You didn't see him again?" His voice broke her thoughts and she shook her head.

  
"Too much happened." Natasha lied, not wanting to tell Steve what happened to James. There was a pang of guilt over his torture, being frozen while she lived a normal life... as normal as any Red Room assassin could.

  
“So... I told you about mine.” Natasha watched, her eyes on Steve’s chiseled features. Unfortunately, she was not sure she had ever seen her friend looking so uncomfortable nor so sad.

  
Steve gazed out over the city and swigged on his bottle of beer, emptying it swiftly. “He was my best friend, Bucky. He protected me even when I did stupid things like pick fights with people twice my size.” Natasha looked at him in surprise. “Yeah, Tasha, I was a skinny kid with asthma.” Steve grinned at Natasha, finding her response amusing.  


“I find that hard to believe without pictures, but go on.” Natasha replied, a smile twitching on her lips.

  
Laughing, he shook his head. “Anyway... when I woke up, seventy years missing from my life, Bucky was the person I missed the most.” Steve paused and rubbed his hand over the glass of the bottle. “I saw him die, right in front of me and I couldn’t do a thing to stop it. Some superhero I make.” The bitterness in his voice made Natasha frown.  


Putting a hand on his arm, Natasha responded, “You know, Superhero is just a title. Sometimes there’s little you can do to stop the things that happen to people we care for.”  


He nodded as a voice came up behind them, making both of them jump.

  
“So this is where you are. Great view.” Agent Phil Coulson walked up to the landing pad.

  
Natasha got up, thinking Coulson had the worst timing ever. Spying the file in his hands, she greeted him then asked, “Let me guess, you have a mission for me.”, nodding at the file in his hands.

  
“Both of you actually. Fury wants you there for a variety of reasons.” Handing the file over to Natasha. Opening the file, Steve watched her face go pale, nipping at her lower lip. “Tasha? What is it?”

  
Handing him the file. he read the name of the person concerned:

  
_James Buchanan ‘Bucky’ Barnes AKA ‘The Winter Soldier.’_


End file.
